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Tanith Lee
Tanith Lee (born September 19, 1947) is a British writer of science fiction, horror and fantasy. She is the author of at least 54 novels and 188 short stories, a children's picture book (Animal Castle) and many poems. She has also written two episodes of BBC science fiction series Blake's 7. Lee is the daughter of two ballroom dancers. Despite a persistent rumour, she is not the daughter of Bernard Lee (actor who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s). Tanith Lee married author John Kaiine in 1992. Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant and a waitress before becoming a full time writer. Her first short story, Eustace, was published in 1968. Her first novel (for children) was The Dragon Hoard, published in 1971. Her career really took off with the acceptance in 1975 by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave. This was a mass-market paperback and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing. She is one of the Guests of Honour at Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) to be held in London in March 2008. Lee’s Work Tanith Lee's prolific output spans a host of different genres, including adult fantasy, children's fantasy, science fiction, horror, gothic horror, gothic romance, and historical novels. Her style and atmosphere is probably closest to Jack Vance who, similarly, is not tied to a specific genre. Her series of interconnected tales called "The Flat-Earth Cycle", beginning with Night's Master and Death's Master, is similar in scope and breadth to Jack Vance's The Dying Earth. Night's Master contains allegorical tales involving a satan-like creature who kidnaps and raises a beautiful boy and separates him from the sorrow of the real world. Eventually, the boy wants to know more about the "world" and asks to be returned. Much of her work is allegorical in nature, even Bible-like, in her presentation of strange mythical lands. Added to the mix is a sexual sensibility that is not often found in fantasy fiction. Her prose style is more atmospheric than intimate, often transplanting the reader into strange lands that are simultaneously recognizable, like the gothic-like setting of The Castle of Dark or the surreal fantasy realm of Prince on a White Horse in which both the reader and the main character are ignorant of their whereabouts and plopped into the story and setting seemingly together. Lee has also dabbled in the historical novel with her offering The Gods are Thirsty, a book set during the French Revolution. A large part of her output is children's fantasy which has spanned her entire career from The Dragon Hoard in 1971, Animal Castle and Princess Hynchatti & Some Other Surprises in 1972, Companions on the Road (1975) and Prince on a White Horse in 1982 to the more recent The Claidi Journals containing Wolf Tower, Wolf Star, Wolf Queen and Wolf Wing in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Publication Lee has been published by a myriad of different publishers, particularly in regards to whether she is offering adult fiction or children's fantasy. Her earlier children's fantasy novels were published in hardcover by MacMillan UK and subsequently printed as paperbacks in the US often by DAW, with occasional hardcovers by St. Martin's Press. Some of her work was only printed in paperback, mainly in the US by DAW in the 1970s to the early 1980s. She has received some small press treatment, such as the Arkham House edition of short stories Dreams of Dark and Light: The Great Short Fiction of Tanith Lee in 1986, and in the first "Night Visions" installment published by Dark Harvest. Some of her work has been exclusively released in the UK with US publications often pending. Bibliography *''The Dragon Hoard'' (1971) *''Animal Castle'' (1972) *''Princess Hynchatti & Some Other Surprises (1972)'' :The Birthgrave Trilogy :*''The Birthgrave'' (1975) :*''Shadowfire'' (1978) :*''Quest for the White Witch'' (1978) *''Companions on the Road'' (1975) :The Four-BEE Series :*''Don't Bite the Sun'' (1976) :*''Drinking Sapphire Wine'' (1977) :The Novels of Vis :*''The Storm Lord'' (1976) :*''Anackire'' (1983) :*''The White Serpent'' (1988) *''The Winter Players'' (1976) *''Volkhavaar'' (1977) *''East of Midnight'' (1977) *''The Castle of Dark'' (1978) :Tales From The Flat Earth :*''Night's Master'' (1978) :*''Death's Master'' (1979) :*''Delusion's Master'' (1981) :*''Delirium's Mistress'' (1986) :*''Night's Sorceries'' (1986) *''Electric Forest'' (1979) *''Shon the Taken'' (1979) *''[[Sabella, or the Blood Stone'' (1980) *''Kill the Dead'' (1980) *''Day by Night'' (1980) *''Lycanthia '' (1981) :The S.I.L.V.E.R. Series :*''The Silver Metal Lover'' (1981) :*''Metallic Love'' (2005) :*The Tin Man (20??) http://voyageronline.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/tanith-lee-on-the-silver-metal-lover/ *''Unsilent Night'' (1981) *''Prince on a White Horse'' (1982) *''Cyrion'' (1982) *''Red As Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer'' *''Sung in Shadow'' (1983) *''Tamastara'' (1984) *''Night Visions'' (1984) *''The Gorgon and Other Beastly Tales'' (1985) *''Days of Grass'' (1985) *''Dreams of Dark and Light: The Great Short Fiction of Tanith Lee'' (1986) *''Dark Castle, White Horse'' (1986) :The Secret Books of Paradys :*''The Book of the Damned'' (1988) :*''The Book of the Beast'' (1988) :*''The Book of the Dead'' (1991) :*''The Book of the Mad'' (1993) :*''The Secret Books of Paradys'' (2007) *''Madame Two Swords'' (1988) *''Women as Demons: The Male Perception of Women through Space and Time'' (1989) *''Forests of The Night'' (1989) *''A Heroine of the World'' (1989) *''The Blood of Roses'' (1990) :The Unicorn Series :*''Black Unicorn'' (1991) :*''Gold Unicorn'' (1994) :*''Red Unicorn'' (1997) :The Blood Opera Sequence :*''Dark Dance'' (1992) :*''Personal Darkness'' (1993) :*''Darkness, I'' (1994) *''Heart-Beast'' (1992) *''Elephantasm'' (1993) *''Nightshades: Thirteen Journeys Into Shadow'' (1993) *''Eva Fairdeath'' (1994) *''Vivia'' (1995) *''Reigning Cats and Dogs'' (1995) *''When the Lights Go Out'' (1996) *''Louisa the Poisoner'' (1996) *''The Gods Are Thirsty'' (1996) :The Secret Books of Venus :*''Faces Under Water'' (1998) :*''Saint Fire'' (1999) :*''A Bed of Earth'' (2002) :*''Venus Preserved'' (2003) :The Claidi Journals :*''Law of the Wolf Tower'' (1998) :*''Wolf Star Rise'' (2000) :*''Queen of the Wolves'' (2001) :*''Wolf Wing'' (2002) :*''The Claidi Journals'' (2003) *''Islands in the Sky'' (1999) *''White As Snow'' (2000) *''Mortal Suns'' (2003) :The Piratica Series :*''Piratica: Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl's Adventures Upon the High Seas'' (2004) :*''Piratica II: Return to Parrot Island'' (2006) :*''Piratica III: The Family Sea'' (2007) *''34'' (2004) (as Esther Garber) *''Fatal Women'' (2004) (as Esther Garber) :The Lionwolf Series :*''Cast a Bright Shadow'' (2004) :*''Here In Cold Hell'' (2005) :*''No Flame but Mine'' (2007) *''Death of the Day'' (2004) *''L'Amber'' (2006) *''Indigara'' (2007) Languages *Deutsch *Français *Italiano *Nederlands *日本語 *Polski *Svenska External links *Official Tanith Lee site *Daughter Of The Night - Annotated Online Bibliography *Tanith Lee on Wikipedia *Bibliography on SciFan *Biography on the Internet Book List *[http://joshuaberlow.com/storm2.html Review of The Storm Lord] *Tanith Lee at IMDb